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SAN ANTONIO — Phil Robertson, that embattled character of A&E's “Duck Dynasty” fame, was a mere 2 years old when President Harry Truman desegregated the armed forces. So, he might be forgiven his lack of awareness at the time on what made that step necessary — deeply entrenched racism, of the kind that was rampant in Robertson's Louisiana back in the day.

There is nothing to excuse his ignorance today.

Robertson was certainly more aware of his surroundings by the time he was 8. That was when Brown v. Board of Education ruled on “separate-but-equal” education. And he was 9 when 14-year-old Emmett Till was beaten and shot in Mississippi for allegedly whistling at a white woman.

Robertson is now 67. And, recollecting his times in the cotton fields with black workers, this is what he said of those times in a GQ magazine interview: “They're singing and happy. I never heard one of them, one black person, say, 'I tell you what: These doggone white people' — not a word. ... Pre-entitlement, pre-welfare, you say: Were they happy? They were godly; they were happy; no one was singing the blues.”

Right. Why have a civil rights movement at all?

Here's why. Robertson was 11 when the black Little Rock Nine were blocked by Arkansas' governor from entering their school. President Dwight D. Eisenhower sent in federal troops.

And Robertson was an allegedly cognizant 17 when civil rights protests erupted in Birmingham, Ala. If memory serves, there was television in 1963, screens alive with beatings, fire hoses and dog attacks. That was the same year four young black girls were killed in a church bombing.

At 67, he might better understand what happened when he was 18 and 19. That's when President Lyndon B. Johnson signed historic acts allowing black Americans to vote without unreasonable obstacle and to get served at “public accommodations.”

Speaking of blinders, Robertson uses Christianity as a cudgel to liken homosexuality to bestiality, while averring that he has Christian love for all.

A freedom of speech issue? We detect a certain eye-of-the-beholder in the claim — pushback allowable only if a particular celebrity doesn't happen to fit into a particular worldview.